Want to know what books Tom Overton recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Tom Overton's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
A mother and father, estranged for years, are travelling across Europe to their daughter's wedding. Vibrant, beautiful Ninon has fallen in love with the young Italian Gino. She is twenty-three years old - and she is dying of AIDS.
As their wedding approaches, the story of Ninon and Gino unfolds. On their wedding day, Ninon will take off her shoes and dance with Gino: they will dance as if they will never tire; as if their happiness is eternal; as if death will never touch them. To the Wedding is a novel of devastating heartache, soaring hope and above all, love that triumphs... more A mother and father, estranged for years, are travelling across Europe to their daughter's wedding. Vibrant, beautiful Ninon has fallen in love with the young Italian Gino. She is twenty-three years old - and she is dying of AIDS.
As their wedding approaches, the story of Ninon and Gino unfolds. On their wedding day, Ninon will take off her shoes and dance with Gino: they will dance as if they will never tire; as if their happiness is eternal; as if death will never touch them. To the Wedding is a novel of devastating heartache, soaring hope and above all, love that triumphs over death. less 
Tom OvertonIt’s about tamata: a Greek charm that corresponds to an ailment in a particular part of the body. With Aids, what kind of charm would work? It’s so unplaceable. (Source)
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2
Set in a small village in the French Alps, Pig Earth relates the stories of sceptical, hard-working men and fiercely independent women. This book is an act of reckoning that conveys the precise wealth and weight of a world we are losing. more Set in a small village in the French Alps, Pig Earth relates the stories of sceptical, hard-working men and fiercely independent women. This book is an act of reckoning that conveys the precise wealth and weight of a world we are losing. less Tom OvertonIt follows interconnected peasant families through several generations and traces what’s happening to them. (Source)
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3
John Berger, Jean Mohr | 4.60
4
In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall.
Sassall is a fortunate man - his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, the line between his life and his work is happily blurred.
In A Fortunate Man, Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr reveal with extraordinary intensity the life of a remarkable man. It is a portrait of one selfless individual and the rural community for which he became the hub. Drawing on psychology, biography and medicine A Fortunate Man is a portrait... more In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall.
Sassall is a fortunate man - his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, the line between his life and his work is happily blurred.
In A Fortunate Man, Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr reveal with extraordinary intensity the life of a remarkable man. It is a portrait of one selfless individual and the rural community for which he became the hub. Drawing on psychology, biography and medicine A Fortunate Man is a portrait of sacrifice. It is also a profound exploration of what it means to be a doctor, to serve a community and to heal.
With a new introduction by novelist and GP, Gavin Francis. less 
Gavin FrancisBerger was an astonishingly skilled and observant witness of anything he turned his gaze onto. (Source)
Dan RichardsSo the landscape is almost virgin and primordial, but at the same time, you get this very forward-thinking, almost revolutionary, doctor John Sassall. He’s kind of as much an alchemist as he is a doctor. It’s almost a nature documentary, this little microcosm of the country doctor as viewed through the lens of John Berger. (Source)
Tom OvertonIt’s about a country GP, he had this extremely intimate relationship with the people around him, but also had to be extremely distant. (Source)
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5
   At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.
   In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger−one of this century's most insightful cultural historians−trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shpaed his life and work.... more    At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.
   In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger−one of this century's most insightful cultural historians−trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shpaed his life and work. Writing with a novelist's sensuous evocation of character and detail, and drawing on an erudition that embraces history, politics, and art, Berger follows Picasso from his childhood in Malaga to the Blue Period and Cubism, from the creation of Guernica to the pained etchings of his final years. He gives us the full measure of Picasso's triumphs and an unsparing reckoning of their cost−in exile, in loneliness, and in a desolation that drove him, in his last works, into an old man's furious and desperate frenzy at the beauty of what he could no longer create. less Tom OvertonPicasso’s such a varied and impossible to pin down character. What can be produced in the process of trying to get there is the interesting thing. (Source)
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